


you look so nice, i've been so cold.

by MythologyPastry



Series: Kahn and Dax: A Study [4]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Declarations Of Love, F/F, Past Tense, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Reunions, Trill Culture (Star Trek), Trills, i referenced the rejoined script like fifty goddamn times, please acknowledge my attention to detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythologyPastry/pseuds/MythologyPastry
Summary: Lenara Kahn and Ezri Dax meet for the first time.
Relationships: Ezri Dax/Lenara Kahn, Ezri Dax/Worf, Jadzia Dax/Lenara Kahn, Torias Dax/Nilani Kahn
Series: Kahn and Dax: A Study [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019907
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	you look so nice, i've been so cold.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Sir Chloe's Michelle for an hour while I wrote this, which inspired the title. I suggest you give it a listen.

It's a mistake, really. Lenara never meant to come to the party, but Shin had asked her politely to reconsider. "Romances might distract, but joined Trill should always be able to rise above such things," he said as they shared some Vulcan dish that Lenara couldn't name. "You're young still, barely two lifetimes. You don't know how to handle it yet, but think of this as a test. You'll never reach true connection with Kahn if you cannot accept your own past."

Lenara swirled her spoon around the broth as she thought. "What about Ezri?"

"What of Dax?"

She looked up at his face, his wrinkles even more pronounced as his brow furrowed. Lenara pushed the bowl away, setting her hands on the table softly. "Ezri Tigan and Dax were never meant to be paired." Fact. "The commission," Lenara, "is still worried about her ability to tell what's happening. What happens when she sees me?"

Shin stared at Lenara as if trying to stare through a brick wall. "You're concerned she'll relive Torias? I wouldn't worry. Besides for mannerisms, you look nothing like Nilani."

"Dax knew me in this body too."

Shin smiled. "She knew you but didn't know you." Yes, except they had kissed, and lately Lenara remembers it every time she closes her eyes. "All will be fine, I promise you. Even if she gets confused, it's nothing you could be blamed for. Think of it as a test for her too." He leans forward, and for a second, Lenara can feel the knowledge of his ten lives examining her to a fault. "Dax needs to know how to live in Ezri too, just as Kahn had to learn to live without Dax."

Kahn had lived almost two centuries without Dax, Lenara bit back, but an argument based on the pools against someone with seven hundred years on his belt meant nothing.

They finished the dish quietly, and Shin saw her off with a simple nod of the head. Lenara waved, feeling every bit of the child she was.

* * *

Uncomfortably looking at herself in the mirror, Lenara swipes a purple lipstick on her lips more befitting of Nilani's skintone and sighs. What is she doing?

She walks to the party, her gift clenched by her side. Inside the box lies an old hairpin from Grandma Otner. Lenara has no idea if Ezri Tigan likes jewelry, but Dax always had loved something simple as adornment. Torias had silver cufflinks with small k's. Originally for Keris, by the time he was lowered into the ground, the letters stood for Kahn.

For the love they shared.

Nilani had him buried with them on. Lenara still remembers how cold they felt when she grabbed them off of his dresser. Like his corpse.

Faces, some more familiar than not, greet her when she enters. Dax isn't here yet; she can tell by the lull in the conversation around her. She puts her gift on the pile wordlessly before ambling around the people.

Shin isn't even here after all that. Lenara would laugh if this party was for anyone else, and she could relax.

A cheer rings in her ears, and she turns to see an embarrassed Dax smile at the crowd of joined Trill. Ezri Dax looks beautiful, strikingly different than Jadzia's effortless style, standing in a pantsuit with flared shoulder pads. Lenara smiles. The Captain must be spending too much time with Romulans and Cardassians.

Their eyes meet, and she can feel Kahn gasp against her organs. Dax's eyes fill with panic. The last time they saw each other, it was goodbye.

After the initial cheers and the Head of the Commission ends her speech, Lenara flees to the food table, plopping some of her favorite Cadalain on her plate, when she feels Dax slide up to her. Lenara doesn't dare speak, but Dax, so endlessly bold, does.

"Are you even hungry?"

Lenara chuckles and sighs. "It's not hasperat."

Dax laughs, and the both of them are surprised by it. Ezri's face contorts between so many emotions at once that Lenara doesn't dare give them name. Finally, Dax turns to leave and says, "At least your brother isn't here to be upset with us."

Trying to make light of the situation too, Lenara is quick to remind the Captain that "Bejal can't be mad at what he doesn't know."

There's a pause. They both still, and Dax's eyes look at her with a fire reminiscent of the Otner family shrine. It's familiar and heartwarming, but it could still burn them both to death if Lenara's not careful. 

And she has already failed.

Ezri leads them away from the party hours later, a hand firm against Lenara's back. Most of the other Trill are drunk, or have left for home, and the sober ones are frankly too absorbed in their own conversations to notice the cause of their festivities leave. The heat from Dax's palm rushes through her, settling deep in her heart, and Lenara feels ashamed. They walk silently through the hallways leading to Lenara's temporary accommodation at the Commission Institute. Each step feels like a death sentence, a sword settling itself through Kahn like an old fashioned execution in the Trill capitol.

An older voice, from a previous life, rings in Lenara's head like a siren: _they used to kill people for reassociation. it was before your time._

But when they get to the room, Ezri's hand doesn't depart. It lightly skids over skin until it's settled on Lenara's shoulder, pulling her to face a frustrated look on Ezri's face that reminds her so much of Torias when they argued-

"I cannot believe you flirted with me like that, like it was DS9 all over again. You do not get to play with my emotions like that."

"I don't," Kahn says, but it's slow, as if she's confused as to why that is. 

"You don't," Dax pleads.

"It's not fair," Lenara finally admits, the sorrow settling deep in her frame. The dam breaks, damning both her and Nilani both. "It's not fair! I look at you, and I see all of you. I can see the look in your eyes when you want to kiss me, and it looks so much like how you looked when we got married." Her voice breaks, and her body shakes as she tries not to cry. "I look at you, and I feel happy, and that makes me feel so childish and guilty, but it's true."

Ezri stills, the fight leaving her eyes. "I do that too. I do that all the time," she admits quietly, as if it stings her throat to say. "I looked at you during the party, and I got mixed up again. Even now looking at you, I feel like I'm Torias about to take you to bed." Dax pauses, her eyes flicking over Lenara's lips before her face goes stony. "Or, I'm Jadzia again, and you're about to die, and I-" Lenara can't look at her anymore, staring and the wall and trying to ground herself as the other Trill continues, "I think I know how you felt when you were Nilani, and I was-" But try as she might, Lenara sobs when she thinks of Nilani, bringing a ringed hand against her lips, and all that Ezri said is lost to the room.

The hand leaves her shoulder, and she cries harder. She can hear a sound, and it isn't until it ends that she realizes it was her own wailing.

"Shhh," Ezri murmurs in her ear as Lenara is pulled by her hips into Dax's embrace. The younger Trill wraps her arms around Dax's back and gives in. No one held Nilani this tight after Torias had died. "Please don't cry, Kahn. I can always leave if you want me too. You don't have to see me again. You weren't going to come back to me on DS9. It's cruel of me to come back to Trill to you. Just please don't cry."

It sounds so easy for her to say that. Dax always makes it sound so easy, even in this confused, younger body. Lenara tucks her head into Ezri's neck, desperate to make the older Trill stay.

Kahn twitches in fear, and a part of Nilani reminds her she has no one to blame but herself.

"I can't just ban you from Trill," Lenara whispers. "This might not be New Sydney, but Trill is still your home, Dax."

Ezri's grip slacks just a tad. "I didn't know you knew about that."

Lenara laughs, tasting the salt of her own tears as she does. "Ezri has a pretty strong off-world accent, you know."

Dax grumbles in her ear before asking in an exaggerated drawl, "want to hear something else about me? I promise it's quality gossip."

The words are teasing, but the tone is heavy. If she searches through her memories enough, Lenara can see the twin-looks of guilt of Torias and Jadzia. She's certain that if she were to wipe her eyes and pull Ezri back, she would see that very look on her too. "Sure," she says.

"I slept with Worf."

Lenara frowns. "The man you married? That's not necessarily-"

"After I... after Jadzia died."

Despite the warmth of their hug, every part of Lenara's body from her head to her toes runs cold. She fights back the jealousy that settles deep in her throat, forcing it to the side so she can ask, "how did that end?" _Has it ended?_

Ezri pushes her face softly against Lenara's hair. "It hurt. I'm not Jadzia anymore." The last part is quiet, something that both of them can't think about without feeling choked. "Is it weird?"

Not _is that weird_ , and Lenara knows how Dax said it is a crucial difference. "When I look at you, I see you, all of you. You're Ezri, and you're Dax, and luckily, I hear that Ezri Dax is pretty great."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, they threw her a party and everything."

Dax laughs, raising a hand to card through Lenara's locks. The two of them stand balanced by each other. Kahn never wants to let go.

But all good things have to end, eventually. Dax breaks their embrace when she pulls away long after the tears on Lenara's face are but a faint memory.

"I still love you," Dax says with finality. "And if I don't go now, I won't ever go."

Kahn remembers another conversation so similar to this, and yet, it ended so differently. "I love you too."

The Captain goes to leave, but once she's at the door, she turns to face the younger Trill once more. They look at each other for a long time, then Ezri Dax leaves.

There's a twitch in her stomach, a violent urging, and Lenara Kahn follows.


End file.
